suphew

after reading a couple of things from eric broneman I have started moving corals just covered in wet handy towels, according to him it lessens probelms with toxins and also stops them moving round and damaging themselves. If I was you I would visit my LFS and collect a few poly boxes, they usually have heaps because the fish arrive in them and they are glad to get rid of a few. line with newspaper put corals in, cover with handy towels or newspaper, dump some water over the lot till the paper is all wet. Of course poly boxes are also good for moving the fish. The rock would be okay done the same way, but the pods etc will take a hammering so might be better moved in water. Remember to add the fish etc to the new tank as though they have come from a different tank since with doing large water change your parameters will be different. If you do end up moving your corals in water, dont add that water to your tank, esp soft corals can release a lot of crap when they get stressed

not really, last time I used it was when I medicated for flat worms a couple of months ago. dont get me wrong, I thought my water was pretty clear until I started using zeolite. but i do need to get some more carbon, I have a few soft corals so should use it to remove the toxins.

I use just zeolite, I only tried it because it was cheap $16 for the amount I needed I think. I was amazed at how clear it made my water, pies came had a look to, and he was pretty surprised. a few months later I removed the zeolite and could see the difference in days. Put it back on, clear again with-in a day. I never used any of the other products including the starter, I can't see how it would have speed things up for me, only took a day or two to make a noticable difference. Easy to, I forget its there, runs in an cannister filter behind the sump. I guess I should open it up to make sure its not full of crap, been months since I last looked. Also I have never had any NO3 that I could test for, don't know if this is the zeolite, or what, I guess a combo of things.

How does testing make things grow faster?? I have a cal reactor, I tested when I set it up, test every few month to make sure its on track. I sometimes think people change too much in there tanks, esp if they are testing every five minutes

I would be lucky if I tested mine every couple of months, if the corals are looking fine I don't stress it to much. Gota love Xenia, looks sad as soon as something is too far off.

And get used to very short and often not that helpful replies, lol. Larger water volume is because things change more slowly as the volume increases. There are alot of things that can cause problems in your system and in a small tank they get out of control very quickly, PH, salinity, temp, KH, NO2, NO3. Commonly reccomended is a 4 foot tank or about 200l as a first tank. There is a local who has a 10l nano tank running (and is his first tank) but he has no fish, just corals.

Think I paid $120 for the last lot of DE 250w MH bulbs I got

running filters on saltwater tanks isn't really done anymore, accept for holding things like carbon and phosphate removing resin. I don't know how good the skimmer's there are but if those were my choices I would go for the SA2014 It only costs $10 more and is rated for twice as much water. This is a good thing, you can't over skim the water, it will just make your tank easier to keep, and also give you the option to go to a bigger tank or add a sump etc. I suggest you ask in the trade and exchange section for secondhand skimmers, there are also a few importers and shops on here that might be able to hook you up. Also suggest you post anything to do with saltwater in the saltwater section, a lot of us only read that and the T&E

$250's a crazy price for bulbs, have you shopped round, tried lighting stores instead of LFS? Normally they wont have them in stock but if you take in an old bulb they can often track them down. But if it was me I would buy the 400w ballist pies is selling and one of jetskisteve reflectors, new 400w bulb, and it would still cost you less than 2X$250, then if you sell the A3 you'll proberly end up making money! ROTFL

no those snails dont move, I have some larger ones are well as those small ones. They are pretty cool to watch feeding

think a 1250 pump would be way to small for what you have drawn, I have two suggestions firstly use a 1060 pump (there are plently of these round secondhand for $100 or so), this will give you the head height and flow you require. Secondly why pump to all the tanks?? let gravity do the work for you, put a overflow in each tank draining into the next. this will also save you a huge amount of plumbing for feeds and returns.

More information would help, tank size, stocking, age of tank, plants, lights????

As long as you dont mind paying twice as much for your windows :lol: I reckon heat pumps are the way to go, heating, cooling, removes condensation, and cheap to run

My extractor fan came from bunnings and is nosiy as, sounds like a jumbo jet taking off. I have put it on a timer and it is away from the sitting room so doesn't wory me too much. JUst something to consider.

because my loops are under the tank fed via drilled holes there is no need to prime. Does your king 4 have the stainless impella? if so make sure you can get to it easierly so you can take it out and clean off the rust every once in a while.

my screen is just pressure pipe with a cap on the end and lots of holes drilled, also used to attach rock to. I run two loops have two holes in the middle of the tank and an outlet at each end. all under rock so you cant see them

really need to know how many fish you have, what filter you are using, and how long the tank has been setup. It's unusual 2 see amonia in a tank that has been running for any time. Did you put the water the fish came in into the tank? It's possible that they were being medicated, and this has killed the bacteria in your tank. I would be doing daily water changes with aged water for a week or so, normally if you had a low fish load you could just wait an let the cycle happen but since the amonia has increased you need to keep it at a lowish level. Also if the Discus look fat and healthy you could stop or lower the feeding for a week, till things are under control this wont hurt them at all.

did you see that coral fragging video? Eric says that all corals need to be fed, but that if your nitrates are high the algae in the corals will eat it as well as the coral itself, you will end up with too many algae in the coral making them look brown. I have been using reef booster but just ran out?? hint hint any one who impoorts it! Also feed cylops-ezy, but as Eric says it is too big for some acro's

just bag each fish up and put in chilly bin, they will be fine for that long. I just transported a fish from akl to wlg via an over night stay in hamilton, fish was in bag for 24 hours, however bag was fill with pure oxygen.

Very interesting comments about feeding corals at the end. Anyone have a saw I can borrow?? Was surprised how young he was to, was expecting gray hair, white over coat, thick glasses, beard, lol

HRV=heat recovery (or recycling?) ventilation, similar to DVS I think.

just to add to the post, what other shrimps do people have? I have two cleaners, yellow boxer, and an anenome shrimp. both the boxer and anenome shrimps are pretty shy and only come out late at night so have no pic's. my cleaners are a couple inchs in the body.

Something to add to the 2 minute noodles lol, gota love being a student

I made a good simple diffuser using a piece of plastic UGF uplift tube and air line. the air line went from the CO2 regulator (or reactor) down the centre of the UGF tube then sprialed round the outside of the UGF tube. At the lowest part of the air tube I cut a small hole, as the CO2 moved past this hole it drew in water, by the time the water/co2 exited the top of the sprial the co2 was completely dissolved. You have to adjust the 'pitch' of the sprial so the co2/water flows up it at the right speed, I only needed 4-5 turns. Sorry I dont have the diffuser and more so can't post a picture.

800l, 2xheater dont know what they are dont think they ever come on, 2x fan 1 on display, one 1 on sump. all plugged into controller (jetskisteve type), if you switch the controller from C to F the control is a little finer. extractor fan taking wet air outside on a timer. I think the expensive part of the salt water controllers is the titanium probe, IMO a must have. I have killed a few temp probes that are in plastic or stainless.